Category
State Parks
10 adventures tagged State Parks.
BeachesEast Lyme, CT
Rocky Neck State Park
A half-mile crescent of calm, shallow water, a 1930s stone pavilion that looks like a castle, and trains rumbling over the marsh. The little-kid beach, perfected.
BeachesMadison, CT
Hammonasset Beach State Park
Two miles of beach, a boardwalk that goes forever, a free nature center with touch tanks, and a campground big enough to make a whole weekend of it.
State ParksEast Haddam, CT
Gillette Castle State Park
A stone castle built by the actor who played Sherlock Holmes, with 47 weird doors, a lost railroad, a 75-foot train tunnel, and a river ferry to get there. Connecticut's best make-believe is real.
State ParksRocky Hill, CT
Dinosaur State Park
Two hundred million year old dinosaur tracks, in the rock, under a dome, and you can cast your own to take home if you bring the supplies. The real half of Connecticut's dinosaur pair.
WaterfallsEast Haddam, CT
Devil's Hopyard State Park
A 60-foot waterfall, perfectly round potholes in the rock that colonial farmers blamed on the devil, and a name kids will not stop saying. Pairs with Gillette Castle for the full East Haddam day.
State ParksKillingworth, CT
Chatfield Hollow State Park
A covered bridge, a swimming pond, and a hillside of rock caves kids can actually scramble into. The park nobody outside Killingworth talks about, which is exactly the point.
WaterfallsSouthbury, CT
Southford Falls State Park
Twenty minutes from home, a covered bridge, a waterfall, and a pond full of turtles. The lowest-effort win in the rotation.
Easy HikesHamden, CT
Sleeping Giant State Park
A mountain shaped like a sleeping giant, a gravel road a four-year-old can climb, and a stone castle at the top. This one sells itself.
BeachesMilford, CT
Silver Sands State Park
A boardwalk over the marsh, a beach that doesn't require a highway drive, and a sandbar that appears out of the ocean twice a day like a magic trick.
WaterfallsKent, CT
Kent Falls State Park
A 250-foot waterfall you can walk almost the whole way up, and the kids won't stop talking about it for a week.